


between the bookshelves

by olleetherogue



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, First Meetings, M/M, Trans Male Character, adam is hard of hearing, authors favourite writing media are dialogues and longing, bickering strangers to friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 10:20:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20375167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olleetherogue/pseuds/olleetherogue
Summary: Gansey comes to the library in an attempt to talk to Blue. Ronan accompanies him.Adam comes to the library to study with Blue, and is very distracted by an annoyed-looking fella.





	1. quiet - and not very - introductions

**Author's Note:**

> featuring: first meeting, bickering, staring at each other, Blue and Gansey hitting it off. 
> 
> here goes my first fanfic ever!  
no beta, we write and we die like heroes  
(please be gentle)
> 
> also LISTEN in may or may not turn into a huge Trope Marathon but whatever. isn't it why we love fanfics anyway

Ronan, fully dressed, packed, and ready to leave, was sitting stifly on Gansey's bed and waiting for Gansey, who was walking hastily around the room in search of _something_. Ronan, who was thinking, _good luck with finding anything in _that_ mess_, was getting progressively more bored and inclined to change his mind on accompanying Gansey to the library.

“Hey, Noah, have you seen my hair comb?” Gansey yelled in the corridor.

“No, but you can borrow mine, if you want,” came Noah's response from another room.

Gansey disappeared. Ronan tapped his foot and followed him to hurry him up by the means of silently standing behind him and pressuring him to just go already with his dead glare in the bathroom mirror. It didn't seem to help, so Ronan cleared his throat.

“Gansey. Let's go. She wouldn't care about your hair.”

Gansey, busy with fixing his hair for the third time, blushed ever so slightly, and Ronan knew what was coming. Oh the stammering, the sweet denial, a side dish of accusations on his account for a good joke, followed by brushing the whole comb thing off to prove how little he cared about Blue, the mysterious girl in the library.

“I-it's not – not everything I do has to do with her, you know. And you know I just like my hair neat.” After a pause, he added, more jokingly than not, “and frankly, how do I know that _you _don't like her? Hm?” Ronan, unimpressed, got bored and turned to leave, murmuring, “Because I am gay,” but let him be at that. He could see Gansey was giddy and nervous.

Today was the day, as Gansey kept telling everyone in the flat (it was even marked on the kitchen calender). Today he will talk to Blue. He had a plan and everything. And Ronan was there to support him – and to study.

Before they left, Gansey asked, “Noah, you sure you don't want to come?”

“Oh no, all the people in the library make me real anxious, plus, you're leaving so the quiet should help me study.”_ Or be a good enough reason to procrastinate_, Ronan added to himself.

With that, they set off.

* * *

So the whole library thing.

Their uni worked in the following manner: each subject had three exam takes, which meant you fail a subject three times, and you're expelled. A certain student had kind of stopped caring about their grades quite early on and, as a result, failed two subjects twice, leaving each with only one take each for an exam. Well, Ronan didn't really want to be expelled per se. Or, to be more precise, Gansey _really _didn't want Ronan to "disappear from his life" and see him “even less than he gets to”. And yes, Gansey was aware that him being expelled does not mean that Gansey and Ronan will never see each other again, especially given that they live together, but Ronan decided to put a little of effort for his best friend.

Meanwhile, Gansey was noticing Blue – a girl with whom he shared his Art History class, a girl with a critical mind, a sharp eye, and a unique style – even by the marks of the Arts majors.

* * *

Today the library was mostly empty, only a few responsible students working on their mid-terms projects, Blue among them. She was sitting at a large common table made out of dark wood. From what he could see, she was wearing two tops layered on each other – a beige long-sleeve underneath a home-cut light blue crop top.

Right next to her sat a boy with focused eyes and sandy hair. His left hand was writing notes from a book with pictures, his shoulders hunched. Ronan was sure he had never seen fingers so interesting.

Ronan sat right in front of him, accidentally kicking his foot, and unceremoniously dropping his book on the table. The boy looked up in a swift motion, and, when no apology came, looked back to his notes. Ronan angrily opened his book, already bored.

To the right of him, Gansey was visibly nervous. He cleared his throat, twice. Apparently, the plan was coming into action right now.

Blue looked up, and simultaneously a flash of recognition and confusion seemed to shine in her eyes. Ronan looked back to his book, the pure definition of nonchalance. Gansey, currently quite the opposite of nonchalance, opened his mouth.

“Oh, is that-” Gansey whispered loudly,

“How do I-” Blue said quietly at the same time.

They laughed: Gansey nervously, Blue – with an air of friendly confidence.

“Go ahead,” he prompted her.

“How do I know you? Your face is very familiar,” she squinted her eyes and put her hand to her chin, index finger and thumb outstretched in a clear illustration of pondering.

“We both take an Art History class, I believe. I am Gansey, by the way”, his hand already outstretched, his smile as dashing as always despite the nervousness.

Blue put one of her hands in between the pages of the book, and shook his hand once with another hand, leaning over the table. “I am Blue Sargent. Nice to meet you.”

“Now, what did _you_ want to say?” Blue propped her head on her hand, which she used for pondering emotion just five seconds ago, not _too_ concerned about the volume of her voice. Ronan – who was still pretending to study - gave her a look. The look went unnoticed. While he was at it, his gaze stopped sneakily by the boy next to Blue. He did not seem to mind, or notice the exchange, really. Ronan was almost impressed.

The boy also seemed mildly familiar, although Ronan would not be able if they have any classes together, given that he would not really know anyone from his courses.

“I wanted to ask if it's the _Portraits of Women of the __Lat__e __20__h_ _Century Analysis through the Critical Whiteness Approach_ by Luca Stormwild that you have there?” He whispered to Blue, a sentence seemingly rehearsed; if anything, the name was too long to remember without rehearsing, even for a nerd like Gansey.

Somebody shushed them.

“Oh no, Adam has that one,” she pointed with her head towards the boy next to her, not paying any mind to the shush. Ronan's eyes, half-hidden by his eyelashes, half-searching, noticed no reaction again. “We are study buddies,” she smiled and nudged Adam with her elbow. When she turned, her bright yellow feather earring swooned wide. Adam turned his head to her then.

“Yes?” He asked, voice slightly hoarse from being silent for a while, and cleared his throat. Ronan turned a page with a purpose.

“This is Gansey. He's also in our Art History Class!” She said rather loudly.

Adam smiled politely, and nodded, but didn't say anything, returning to his book again.

“Did you need the book or something?” Blue asked, quieter.

“Oh, well. Um, actually yes, there seem to be no other copies available, and I was trying to get some inspiration for the project we have to do. Do you have any ideas yet, what you want to do?”

Someone shushed again, and said in an angry whisper, “Could you please keep quiet? This is a library!”

Blue rolled her eyes, and Gansey laughed soundlessly, even though Ronan was sure that Gansey had to be at least _mildly_ uncomfortable with them breaking a rule of “No talking in the library”.

“Could we maybe discuss it outside?” Gansey asked.

“Uh,” she looked at her book, and then at Adam, and said “okay, sure. Not too long though.”

She then tapped Adam's shoulder and signed something with her hands. Adam nodded, and looked at Ronan, catching his gaze. Ronan, caught red-handed, cursed, and turned another page, even though there was no point in lying. Judging by the scribbling sounds, Adam went back to writing; not that Ronan would dare look up and check again.

He also wondered what Blue had said and whether it was about him. 

Blue took her notebook and gestured to Gansey to go. He rushed to his feet, as graciously as was in his current capabilities.

“See you later,” he whispered to Ronan. Ronan gave him a mock-enthusiastic thumbs up without looking.

Ronan turned two pages back, to actually start studying, now that the distraction was out of the way.

“Was it your friend?” Adam asked, without looking up.

Ronan did not reply at first.

“That guy? Never seen him in my life,” he dragged out, his voice in the usual volume, catching from the clues that he could not hear very well.

Ronan felt Adam looking up. His head was burning with intent to not look back.

When Adam said nothing, Ronan asked, “Was that girl with the feather yours?” He looked up as well, and caught Adam's squinted eyes.

“As you have heard, we are study buddies. And yes, she is also my friend.” Adam's head tilted as he said it.

“I thought you couldn't hear that well,” Ronan said, the tone more accusatory than he wished for it.

“Making a lot of assumptions here about people you know nothing about.” Adam was visibly becoming more and more frustrated, if his frown and squint were anything to go by.

A person at the nearby table stood up, dragging their chair loudly, clicking their tongue, and left.

Ronan decided to stay silent not to mess it up even more. The urge to prove the boy wrong was stronger, though, so he said, “I do know that you study Arts, and your name is Adam, and you have a friend and a study buddy combined in one person. You did not stop taking your notes, so you must either be very good with tuning out unnecessary noises, or you are determined like that.” He wished he could keep going, to prove further, but he was finding it difficult not to make an even bigger mess out of this.

“Observing a person for five minutes does not mean that you know them. If anything, it's kinda creepy” Adam turned back to his book.

“I never said that I know you, but it is also not true to say I know nothing about you-”

“Oh, now you're just picking at my words-”

At that point, the librarian came.

“I have received some complaints about your table. I have to ask you to keep it quiet or leave the library to discuss issues that seem to be of much importance. Thank you.” With a curt nod, they left. The stitch looked at them smugly and went back to his place.

Ronan closed his book, and stood to leave.

“Tell Gansey I left.” He turned and started walking away.

“I don't even know your name,” Adam said quietly._ And I'm not your messenger_, he thought.

That was the first time Ronan Lynch met Adam Parrish.


	2. anticipating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> featuring: _and they were study buddies_, more bickering, an epic poem, and a bed.  
(chapter reaploaded)

The second time Ronan Lynch met Adam Parrish was a week later in his Ancient Literature class.

Ronan came late, and Parrish was sitting alone in the front row, listening attentively to what the professor was saying. Ronan sat at the back, dropping his body on a bench in a somewhat dramatic way. To let people know it was not his favourite place to be right now.

The lecture about Iliad was not catching Ronan's attention either. Somehow he assumed there would be more Latin involved. Well, so much for assuming.

At the end of the lecture, when people have already started getting up, Ronan heard bits and pieces of a professor saying “And make sure to have started working on the presentation with your partner. That will be 40% of your grade!”. Ronan cursed in a dead language.

He begrudgingly came to the teacher to ask whether she had a list of students who were not paired up yet.

“No, Mr.-”

“Lynch.”

“No, Mr. Lynch, we do not keep such a list. Students self-organise themselves in groups, as you should have known from the first lecture.” She smiled, fake politeness on her lips, and turned her body slightly to let him know she is done with him.

Ronan turned around, and was incredibly close to Adam Parrish.

(The last name slipped from Gansey, who was on cloud nine from talking to Blue.

“And she said she liked my hair, isn't that funny? We agreed that we will work together – with Adam Parrish, actually, in a group, he is also taking that class. Did I tell you that Blue is taking extra classes from Political Science degree, _and_ Environmentalism? Maybe you should look it up, by the way, if you want to learn about farming – I still don't know if it was a joke or not. Oh, oh, and she asked me if she can have my phone number. I totally did not expect it – and I didn't even need my plan. Oh, she is just, so lovely, Ronan” With that he plunged on the bed, throwing his legs on Ronan's lap, who, in turn, immediately shoved him, although not hard enough to actually get rid of the weight of his limbs. He has not heard Gansey quite so happy ever since he discovered one of the three-copies only book about a Welsh king.

Gansey never asked why Ronan left that day, and it left him wondering. He was wondering whether Adam mentioned anything, or if he knew his name now, or if he would see him soon again.)

“Well, _Mr. Lynch_,” Adam teased, “seems like we are in the same pickle.” He did not offer any further information, or suggestion, and looked at Ronan, anticipating.

Ronan started walking away, their shoulders and arms brushing, and when Parrish did not follow, he turned with a feeling, and beckoned his head. “What are you standing there for, Parrish? We have project work to discuss.”

* * *

They went to the library first. With a closed copy of the book on the table, hidden behind the bookshelves of the mostly empty library, they started their discussion; Adam – clearly more experienced in group work (or, any kind of work, really) - prompted dividing tasks. It was not even two minutes into the talk, that they were quickly reminded of no-talking rule. They checked the group rooms. None were available.

Which is how they ended up in Ronan's bedroom in Monmouth Manufacturing. They tried the kitchen first, of course, but Noah was there, crunching loudly on the peanut flips, and overall distracting them. Ronan was easily distracted as it was, with Adam's fingers, and low accented voice, and his intense eyes.

“So. Tell me again. Do you have any idea what we actually have to do?” Ronan asked from his bed, character analysis, his back half-leaning at the wall, half-hanging in the air. He was uncomfortable but did not want to move.

Adam, turning on Ronan's chair, _did_ know what they had to do.

“How do you not know what one of the two assignments we have this semester is, Lynch?” Ronan was not sure if he sounded annoyed, or if he was teasing. Adam Parrish was a mystery, one that Ronan was becoming more and more keen on solving.

“Probably because this is the first class I attended this semester.”

“Ah, _that's_ why I didn't even know you were taking this class,” he replied, somewhat sarcastically.

“How come you didn't have a partner, then, Parrish?”

“None of your business.” Adam seemed to be almost as good at shooting dirty looks as Ronan. If only he didn't find it attractive.

“Anyways. We all get it, you are a good student and know all the shits we have to do by heart. Can we move on now.” Ronan pushed himself with force off the wall, to put a further full stop in this discussion.

Adam muttered something about _who am I getting stuck with_, but told him nonetheless, “We have to pick one or two heroes of the poem, do a character analysis, and do a PowerPoint about it.” What an enigma of a boy, Ronan thought, mentally rolling his eyes. “_I_ will be responsible for the visuals.”

Ronan, torn between telling him he could not give a fuck about visuals, doing anything in his might to counter him and urging to ask why would his visuals be not good, settled for neither. Instead, he asked, “What the fuck is a character analysis.”

“It's. God. Think, describing the character's personality, role in the story, what themes does this character play role in, what development did they undergo, what are their relationships to other characters. Stuff like that.” When no reply came, he asked, “Are you following?”

At that, he looked at Parrish. This time the words had no bite to it, and he had a notebook on his lap, ready to get to work. He also seemed tired. Ronan was tired too, of arguing.

“Yes. I am just thinking about how to proceed. How about we start by looking at the book and annotating where the character appears first? What character should we choose anyway?”

“I was thinking about Achilles, or Achilles and Patroclus, them being close _companions_ and all. And that's not too bad of an idea. Do you have the book? I didn't take the one from the library.”

Ronan was exactly not sure what to make of the first comment. The second comment felt like a victory, a near-praise.

“Uh, I definitely don't,” he said with an air of '_what kind of nerd would have a copy of Iliad in their bedroom_'. “But I can ask Gansey. I am _sure_ he would have a copy.” Without waiting for a response, and desperate to have a moment free of the somewhat intense energy in the room, he went to Gansy's room. Without knocking, he opened the door, went in, and closed it behind him.

“Do you have a copy of Iliad?” Ronan asked his flatmate and best friend, an occasional study buddy and most probably the most likeable guy in town, who was looking up at him from the floor, multiple pieces of paper scattered around him. “What the hell is this?”

“A project I'm working on with Blue and Adam for Art History,” he sat up straighter, and stretched his back. “Speaking of, Adam? In your room?” He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head.

“We are partners for a class,” was Ronan's reply. “Like, study partners.”

“Yeah, I got that bit. Interesting. Uh, and yeah, of course, I have Iliad, there, in the middle bookshelf.” Gansey looked equal parts confused, intrigued, and maybe a little proud. He pointed to the said shelf.

“You're welcome,” was Gansey's sing-song reply to Ronan's non-existent words of gratitude, who had already left and closed the door behind him.

For good measure, Ronan took twenty seconds to breathe in the corridor before returning to his room.

“Told you,” he told Adam in the way of greeting, raising the book in his hand.

What Ronan did _not_ see coming, was Adam changing positions sitting on his bed, his notebook and pencil on his lap, bookmarks ready on his left side.

To Ronan's questioning look, he said, “I thought it made more sense to read together, so that none of us skips anything, and we can discuss directly with the text in front of us. Or take turns reading. Is that okay?”

“Whatever.” He attempted to shrug.

Ronan's heart was singing, a dangerous ode to fear, to pulling, and to falling; it was anticipating, _something_. He dropped on the bed a good fifteen centimetres away from him, enough to fit the core of the book between their thighs. He chose to sit a bit further up the bed. He hoped Adam wasn't uncomfortable.

“I- uh, what did I want to say,” Adam drifted, changing his position slightly, not moving further away nor scooching closer, but simply getting comfortable. “Oh, yes. I have five types of bookmarks, so for categories, I was thinking...”

Sitting slightly behind Adam was both a curse and a blessing, Ronan realised, looking at the light brown freckles on the back Adam's neck, so open between his short tousled hair and the dipping t-shirt. It felt like a particularly intimate place to know of. Add in the dimly lit room, a bed which barely ever saw anyone except its owner, and low-key homoerotic poem they were about to read, and Ronan was a goner. However, when his eyes got tired of craning left, trying to count, just approximately, how many freckles were visible and failing time after time, Ronan shifted closer to the book, deciding to pay attention from now on. And he knew he had it in him to not change his course of thoughts even when their shoulders pressed together, remaining close and warm.

And so that was the start to their first study session together, two no-longer strangers pressed against each other and not pulling away, sharing a book between the two, and reading, reading until their brains could carry on no more.

In Ronan's mind that was the day their unlikely friendship began, as did his crush. Not that he would let anyone know about it.


End file.
